Caveman Diet

Fine dining from the forest floor at Isa

There's no way around it: Isa is New York's hippest new restaurant. Let's qualify that by saying 1) it's in Williamsburg, 2) it's the brainchild of Taavo Somer, the guy behind Freemans, which single-handedly started the Edison-bulb-and-taxidermy craze, and 3) it's full of firewood and hipsters. Not a bad start. The immaculately rendered open kitchen looks out to a spartan space, an Estonian cabin by way of the Whole Earth Catalog: light wood, exposed brick, geometric motifs, and lots and lots of beards. Isa's food echoes the interior's urban primitivism. The oil-soaked sardine filets, presented with their own fried skeleton, and the pollen-dusted scallop crudo express Isa's haute hippie ethos: fine dining on the forest floor. How else could you explain a delicious dish of kale, granola, and nut cheese, or the rooftop vegetable garden? Bringing hunters and gatherers together, the ribeye steak, with trumpet mushrooms and dandelion, soothes the most primal of hungers. Stay classy and use that fork and knife.

Isa 348 Wythe Ave. (S. 2nd St.), Williamsburg (347-689-3594